Australian scientists find opalized fossils hinting at a prehistoric era of diverse monotremes, displaying traits of both platypus and echidna.
A team of Australia n scientists have unearthed the evidence of an ‘Age of Monotremes’ at the Australia n Museum , Museums Victoria and Australia n Opal Centre.Two esteemed mammalogists, Professor Tim Flannery and Professor Kris Helgen from the Australia n Museum Research Institute , spearheaded the research.Opalios splendens is the official name of this new species and there are a lot of similarities with platypus and echidna. These are the only egg-laying mammals across the globe today.
Professor Flannery shared that he happened to stumble across them and recognized instantaneously that they were from ancient monotremes. Discovered in the Lightning Ridge opal fields, NSW, the opalised jaws are quite dated it appear, and take us back to the Cenomanian Age of the Cretaceous Period, which must be between 102 million to 99.6 million years ago.
He said, “Today, Australia is known as a land of marsupials, but discovering these new fossils is the first indication that Australia was previously home to a diversity of monotremes. It’s like discovering a whole new civilisation.” “Opalios splendens sits on a place in the evolutionary tree prior to the evolution of the common ancestor of the monotremes we have today. Its overall anatomy is probably quite like the platypus, but with features of the jaw and snout a bit more like an echidna – you might call it an ‘echidnapus’,” Helgen said.
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